Catharine often told the King plainly what the Protestant Lords of the Council only dared to hint in the most delicate phrases.

His crown, she said, was at stake: the old dotard Arundell and the blustering Tyrconnel would lead him to his ruin.

It is possible that her caresses might have done what the united exhortations of the Lords and the Commons, of the House of Austria and the Holy See, had failed to do, but for a strange mishap which changed the whole face of affairs.

James, in a fit of fondness, determined to make his mistress Countess of Dorchester in her own right.

Catharine saw all the peril of such a step, and declined the invidious honour.